History that's faded away (7/20/05)

The rows of corn kept marching in neat lines, east to west, north to south. There wasn’t any hint of northwest or southeast to be seen.

Any trace of what I was looking for had long ago been erased by passing time.

It started — as things sometimes do these days — with eBay. I’d been noodling around on the Internet this spring while Connie studied for a course she was taking at Ball State University.

Before I knew it, I’d registered and placed a few bids. And even faster than that, I’d bought something. It’s a dangerous place, eBay.

A few weeks later, a flat package arrived bearing my latest acquisition: An 1876 map of Jay County.

Actually, it’s a page from an 1876 Indiana atlas. But in a sad development for those of us who love old books, certain types of volumes are more valuable in pieces than still bound together.

I rationalized that at least I was saving the Jay County portion of the atlas and that it would be safely preserved once it was properly framed.

Looking it over, I was delighted to see that Salamonia didn’t exist. Lancaster did.

Pennville didn’t exist, except as a post office. But Camden did.

The map dated from a period before the present names we all take for granted had become permanently affixed.

Then I saw something I didn’t expect: A road that’s disappeared.

I’m not talking about a small chunk of county road abandoned because of a bridge in need of repair. I’m talking about several miles of what could have once been a pretty important route.

To imagine where the road used to be, start at the Indiana-Ohio line where Ind. 26 heads west toward Portland. Actually, the initial Indiana stretch of Ind. 26 is one of the few parts of the old road left.

The angling portion of Ind. 26 running northwest from the state line past the Schwieterman families’ farms wasn’t a state highway back in 1876, but it was on the map. But at the point where the road curves back due west — the scene of far too many bad traffic accidents over the years — the old road didn’t turn toward Portland.

Instead, it continued on the same angle, heading northwest through Noble Township, connecting with the crossroads where Mount Zion United Methodist Church now stands at county roads 600 East and 200 North.

From there — in 1876 — the road continued northwest to Westchester. I doubt that it was a Methodist Church expressway, but if it existed today it would be the fastest way between the two congregations on Sunday morning.

Finally, the road continued to the northwest all the way through Bear Creek Township. (It’s two words on the 1876 map.) Then it connected with what’s now U.S. 27 just about a quarter of a mile south of the Jay-Adams line.

My guess is it dated from the earliest years of the county’s history and reflected a route from Fort Recovery to Fort Wayne. When the county was later laid out in a north-south, east-west grid, the angling road lost favor and was abandoned piece by piece.

It was probably foolish of me to go looking for a trace of it, but I wanted to drive the small sections that remained, including a small piece of road 200 East just north of Ind. 67, west of Bryant.

So, for a chunk of a recent July afternoon, I found myself comparing old map and new, scanning the horizon, looking for clues.

I’d hoped that maybe I’d find an old lane that followed the route. No such luck. Or maybe a woodlot that had a northwest to southeast angle. Nope.

It had been erased, wiped from the face of the county, but preserved forever on the map, along with Camden and Lancaster and a dozen other reminders of time gone by.[[In-content Ad]]